CB extends deadline for accepting defaced Sri Lanka Currency Notes
View(s):The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CB), considering requests from the public and the difficulties they face in exchanging willfully defaced currency notes at Licensed Commercial Banks (LCBs), has decided to extend the time period for the exchange of currency notes at LCBs up to March 31, 2018 from December 31, 2017 earlier.
Mutilation, alteration or defacement of currency notes is an offence under the Monetary Law Act (MLA) No. 58 of 1949, and is punishable by imprisonment or fine or both.
Under Regulation E of the MLA, no claim in respect of the willfully mutilated or altered notes shall be entertained and such notes shall be retained by the CB, the banking regulator said in a media release on Sunday.
The holder of these currency notes will have to suffer the loss of face value of such notes effective from April 1, it said adding that the CB advises the public to refrain from such practices and requests the public to assist in “preserving the value and integrity of the country’s legal tender by refraining from willful mutilation, alteration and defacement of currency notes”.
Meanwhile several shops refused to accept torn or disfigured noted even before the earlier scheduled December 31 deadline. Even nearly-new notes with writings on the note (not by the owner but someone elsewhere) were refused by shops as this picture shows.
